


Posthumous

by LovelessWorld



Category: Pandora Hearts
Genre: spoilers i guess but it's been out for years so uh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-10-14 23:01:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17517473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovelessWorld/pseuds/LovelessWorld
Summary: "Posthumous - adjective. Arising, occurring, continuing after one's death." || After his death, Elliot meets a familiar woman with red eyes.





	Posthumous

**Author's Note:**

> Alright so, I was thinking. If the Abyss crushed Lacie's soul in a way "similar to the way a human ingests and digests food," the remains of her soul would have to go somewhere. Then I started thinking of the parallels between her and Elliot, and...this happened. I hope you guys like pain I sure do

Death was a strange thing to experience, Elliot concluded. Or maybe it wasn’t–maybe he wasn’t yet done experiencing death. As a mere human, who was he to say? And now that he was dead, was he still human at all?

Such were the questions that buzzed around his brain like moths around a flame as he became conscious again, somehow. The afterlife, perhaps? The last he remembered, Elliot had been lying in a pool of his own blood, each of his senses dulling one by one before they disappeared. His brother–his adoptive brother–was there with him. Vincent. The elder Nightray spoke softly, his voice seeming to float and echo around the room, around Elliot’s dying body, hovering but never quite landing on his ears. The edges of Vincent’s silhouette began to run like ink on a page, and Elliot did his best to muster one last sound, a tiny, pathetic little sound that somehow still held the urgency that his living voice always had. Vincent noticed this, and knelt beside the dying boy to await his final words. Elliot breathed in sharply, and the air pricked painfully at his lungs–to exhale would be to expel the last traces of life from his now useless body. With his final breath, he spoke:

_“Tell Leo…I’m sorry.”_

After that was nothing. Pure, deep, dark nothing. Elliot’s consciousness seemed to slip away into that nothing, and he let go of it easily–who was he to deny death? Perhaps this nothing, this unfathomable lonely darkness, would be quite a peaceful thing to return to.

But it didn’t last long.

Or maybe it did–again, how could he truly tell? Perhaps it had been a second, perhaps a century and a half. But after some time of nothing, Elliot Nightray felt himself “exist” again.

At first it was simply a sound, familiar and peaceful, like a lullaby. It rang quietly throughout that “nothing,” so quietly that it could have been coming from the world of the living. But then it got a little louder, and then a little louder. And then he remembered–

_“Lacie.”_

He knew that tune. It was the song his friend, Leo, had given to him, Elliot.

_Elliot_. That was his name. Elliot Nightray. He was the hard-headed youngest son of a Duke, a fiery and proud youth with the mouth of a sailor and the soul of a child. Right, he remembered now–he was an illegal contractor. He was the Headhunter.

He was dead.

And just like that, the nothing disappeared. The darkness around him that resembled what he imagined the Abyss would look like flashed and then vanished, replaced by bright and blinding white. Perhaps it was still nothing. But if he remembered himself after death, then it must be something.

It took him a moment to register all the new–or well, old–sensations that overtook him. He was dead, and yet, it was as if Elliot could feel his heartbeat again. He felt as though he was suddenly breathing, thinking, existing–he was alive, and yet he wasn’t. He could see his body, fully intact and clad in what he had worn when he died, the clothing free of any trace of blood. He blinked once, twice, three times, but nothing changed. And for the first time in however long, he heard his own voice.

“What the fuck is this?”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much what everyone says.”

Elliot shrieked in fear and disbelief, jumping backward slightly–if he even could do that. He hadn’t expected a response, and yet it came anyway in the form of a woman’s voice, clear and strong and achingly familiar. He watched with wide eyes as she seemed to materialize before him, her long black hair flying every which way around her head, framing her pale face like a lion’s mane before settling around her shoulders. Her dress was the same shade as her hair, giving her the appearance of a black hole in the midst of the neverending light that was wherever they were. But none of this was quite as off-putting as her eyes….

_Red Eyes. A Child of Ill Omen._

Elliot had seen them before, in Xerxes Break and in his brother, Vincent. But neither of them had scared him much. This woman’s eyes were different, they were… _haunting_. They burned holes into his soul, examining every corner of his mind, reading each carnage-covered memory, every sin he’d committed like a book. These eyes  _knew_  him.  _And he knew them._

_“But how could someone I’ve never seen be so–”_

“Familiar?”

He nearly choked. “How did you know what I was thinking?! Are you a witch or something?!”

She laughed. “Oh, that’s funny! You’re funny. No wonder nii-sama liked you so much.”

“What the fuck?! Don’t fucking laugh at me, lady! Answer me!”

The odd–and annoying, he decided–woman cleared her throat, her initially scary demeanor having changed drastically. “Listen, I don’t know how it happened, but you know me, and I know you. Think about it, like look  _reaaaaaal_  deep in your soul and you’ll find the answer. Your name’s Elliot, right? Can you tell me mine?”

Elliot flinched.  _What the fuck?_ She knew his name. And she was asking him to tell her  _ **her own name?**_

“Listen lady, I don’t know your–”

“ _Elliot_.  _Yes you do._  What is my name?”

He froze. Did he know? Why would she be so insistent if he didn’t know? But if he knew, wouldn’t he know?

He did know. Something deep, deep in his gut knew.

_“Lacie.”_

Lacie smiled cheerfully. “See! You knew. When nii-sama dropped me into the abyss, my soul was crushed into a million little pieces in its depths, but the Baskervilles were wrong, you see–those little pieces have to go somewhere! I’m one of those pieces. And I think,” she jabbed Elliot playfully in the chest, right over where his heart was. He was surprised when it didn’t hurt. “One of them lived on in you. So we’re not the same, but we are! Isn’t that weird? There’s so much the Baskervilles didn’t know about!”

_The Baskervilles. “Nii-sama”…..Glen Baskerville…Leo. Leo is Glen Baskerville. And Glen Baskerville was the one who…no, he wasn’t. That was…_

_Jack Vessalius._

Elliot simply stared down at Lacie, taking everything in. First he was dead, and now this? How did he even know all of this?

Because he and Lacie were the same. And yet they were not.

“Hey, don’t go spacing out on me! We don’t have much time left before you go back,” Lacie waved a hand in front of his face. “We still have lots to talk about you, know!”

“…Eh? ‘Go back?’”

“To the lights of the Abyss, of course! You get to return to the Hundred Cycles,” Lacie ruffled Elliot’s hair affectionately, which caused the boy’s face to flush–because he was  _angry_ , not slightly embarrassed and very confused, absolutely not. “I, however, do not. The pieces of my soul are doomed to wander forever.”

Elliot frowned. “That’s…sad,” he mumbled. “I’m sorry.” Lacie shook her head. “It’s okay! Because you gave me the chance to see nii-sama again.” Suddenly, she threw her arms around him, squeezing him tightly in a way that felt almost motherly. “Thank you, Elliot.” He remained still, unsure what to do. “Uh…you’re welcome?” He mumbled, starting to push her away. “But really, how did you deal with  _Leo_  as a brother? I mean seriously, the guy is a mess, he has  _no_  organizational skills  _whatsoever_  and doesn’t even  _try_  to comb his hair–”

“Elliot.”

He stopped short, and she smiled sadly. “Leo and nii-sama are like us. They’re the same, but they arent. And anyway,” Her red eyes met his blue ones for a moment before she closed them, tears leaking out from the edges. “We’re out of time.”

“Huh?” Elliot looked around, suddenly aware of the tingling sensation beginning again. His new body was fading.

“I used our connection to bring you here for a while, so I could talk to you. But it’s time for you to return to the Hundred Cycles now,” Lacie touched his hand lightly before the two of them seemed to begin drifting apart, as though the space between them was growing while they did not move at all. “If you happen to remember me in your next life, say hi to him for me, will you? Tell him I’m alright.”

Elliot tried to shout back, but his voice was lost with his consciousness as he became light once again.

_“I will.”_


End file.
